A no-cook day...just eating

Mother's day. Hung some clothes out, put a load of school uniform stuff on to wash and picked up eldest from distant location. Contemplating second cup of joe. Had first in bed with sunday paper and leftover fruit pie with yoghurt for breakfast. Yum. Leftover soup with french bread for lunch. This is my deal on mother's day - no cooking. No thinking about cooking. Just eating and a few chores...

I've finally made a start on the new book. Once I'd finished the company GST tax return and sorted out a skype address with the help of one of my tech savvy children (it's why I had them) last week I wrote about 300 words. I know its not much but starting this story seemed the hardest part. I know the outline of the story pretty well although there are still decisions to be made about some peripheral characters and where I will end things. This is the other hard part - deciding on how much to fictionalise a very dramatic true story. Books make demands on structuring, climaxes and denoument and I will have do my best to honour both the storytelling and the story. It's exciting and terrifying all at once. I'm behind on my university study at the moment. Discipline is not my middle name. And the year is getting away on me again. I thought I had the year sorted in terms of plans and goals but as Lennon said, Life is what happens while you're making other plans. I hadn't anticipated the new book or the author talks/events I've been doing. And if you were wondering at all about the need for the skype address, I've just added another activity to the mix. Last year after the Spinning Gold conference there was discussion about setting up the facility for schools to have skype sessions with authors and illustrators. Touring can be expensive and to maximise the benefits of the travel required can often mean shoehorning visits to schools at times that might not be ideal for visitor or school. Skyping would give students face to face access to authors/illustrators with greater flexibility at a fraction of the cost. This fab idea has now become a reality as Booktalks, organised by research and professional development organisation CORE. It goes live tomorrow May 10th. Check it out here .